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Daydream Technical Preview Available Now

September 22, 2016 in Technology | 3 min. read
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We’re excited to announce that native Daydream support is available as of today! It brings a more streamlined workflow, significant optimizations and reduced latency beyond the Google VR SDK for Unity released at Google I/O. No prefabs, scripts or manual manifest modifications are required to get started - simply enable VR and add Daydream as a targeted platform and begin making your own virtual worlds.

Unity’s native support for Daydream aims to solve the hard problems for you. To get optimal performance and latency from the platform we have done a deep integration with the Daydream SDK to leverage the platform’s asynchronous reprojection and VR performance mode. We have also made it easy to switch in and out of VR mode so that your applications can easily expand to the Google VR audience.

Not targeting just Daydream hardware? You can also have your application target Google Cardboard with native support. Applications which target Cardboard will work on older devices so that your application can reach as many users as possible. At this time, Cardboard support is exclusive to Android with iOS Cardboard support coming soon.

You can find more information and download the Technical Preview here. For questions or feedback head over to the new Daydream forum.

Google has also created a Unity SDK which expands Unity further by providing spatialized audio, Daydream controller support, utilities and samples. Please see the script reference and download pages for more details.

Getting Started

If you are ready to get started below is a step by step guide covering the basic configuration steps.

Prerequisites

Make sure to install the Unity Daydream technical preview.  The Download Assistant will install the Editor, Android Player and Offline documentation.  This can be downloaded from the Technical preview page here.

Additionally Daydream requires the latest version of Android Development platform and the Android API SDK version 24 (AKA Nougat).  If you don’t already have Nougat it can be found on the Google Android developer site here.  You will also need a Daydream enabled phone. You can get a devkit setup by following Google’s guide here.

Configuration Steps

  1. Start the Unity Editor
  2. Create new project.
  3. Navigate to Edit -> Project Settings and switch the active player type from Standalone to Android (Box 1 in figure below)
  4. Check the ‘Virtual Reality Supported’ (Box 2 in figure below).image02
  5. Select the + icon under the list of VR Devices then select Daydream from the list. Note: If you add device ‘None’ as the first device in the list Unity will start as a normal application and can be toggled into VR through script.image01
  6. [Optional] Select the arrow next to Daydream device to expand the Daydream options panel. Here you can adjust depth format, foreground, background icons and toggle on/off Sustained Mode. Sustained Performance Mode can be enabled for longer VR experiences by providing improved better battery life at the cost of some reduced performance.image00
  7. Daydream requires the latest player APK. To ensure Unity uses the correct APK and targets only devices upgraded to the latest version of Android the Minimum API Level must be changed. This option is under the Identification section of Player Settings.image03
  8. With the Android Player Settings now configured you are now ready create your Unity content for Daydream. Build & Run to a Daydream capable phone following the same workflow you would for normal Android Development.  
September 22, 2016 in Technology | 3 min. read

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